Crab Rangoon

Makes me feel very OCD about my weekly maintenance I did, however, go above & beyond my routine maintenance last weekend. Did a 50-60g water change, pulled all my rock, removed a few BIG fireworms from the rock, scraped & syphoned the glass bottom, remixed my aquascape when putting the rock back in & sold all the excess/leftovers, removed my Blueface Angel from the DT and put in my pair of Bellus Angels that have been in QT since Halloween. On a weekly basis, I dump & clean my skimmer collection cup, change socks twice a week, spot clean the bottom w/a scraper as needed, check anything & everything for salt creep or moisture, and flush my UV sterilizer w/high flow to evacuate any air that could be trapped inside. Thanks to the LED spotlights, I never get any growth/build-up on my drain & return, side & front glass, Vortech, or the inside & outside of my overflow box

Hey Wyatt, did you contact Tony? If not, give him a call.

No problem I cannot imagine trying to keep this fatty in the Solana! Within hours he was merely a couple inches away from the other RBTA - clearly they have similar taste in light & flow

fingers crossed it lasts til I can get North

I'd like to be on a list to be contacted in the future

The molting frequency will depend on your iodine concentration, iodine dosing frequency, and the size of your inverts. You should expect a fair amount of molting from small size to adult size, but once they're full grown they may molt half as frequently. I dose my iodine every 7-10 days and I probably see anywhere from 1-2 molts per month. I was seeing a sure 2, maybe sometimes 3, per month when they were small and still growing in size, though.

Nope, out in the main part of the house. Gonna run LEDs on it! arm-mounting & PAR38 by any chance?

'cept when brooding, the male looks like Kanye West with the fattest jaw ever yesterday he seemed somewhat interested in food again (since they carry the eggs/fry in their mouth, they cannot eat while incubating or brooding), so I fear he may ditch and go back to his daily grind this weekend. I might have to wait til the next occurrence to get 'em on camera.

I started my tank out with 6 of these guys, and sadly wound up losing 2-3 of them over the course of weeks due to aggression from another Apogon species I had in the tank, which was behaving very dominantly even though there was plenty of room After removing the other Cardinals from the display, I ended up losing yet another leptacanthus about a week later, and was stuck with only a pair. A couple months ago, I decided to pick up 8 more when Jake at RCA was ordering them for the in-wall display tank in the shop, but I still wound up losing 2 more slowly but surely, apparently due to my Wrasse not being compliant with them For months now, I've had a school of 8 of them, and everything's been fine except for an occasional episode with the Wrasse during feeding time. Earlier this week I noticed that two of them seemed secluded, and I was worried they were not faring well, or perhaps fighting. Sure enough, they'd split off from the group around feeding time, and go bicker in a cave. For 2-3 days straight they practically refuse to leave the cave, and the male is absolutely brooding, as is obvious from his jaw/throat poking out. Pretty cool! Since they move so sporadically paired up and away from the group, I can't get very good pictures of the pair, but I'll definitely be getting them on video since their behavior is so peculiar and they're both showing rather radiant colors. Upon receiving them from the shipment originally, I really couldn't tell males from females - but now that I've noticed these two paired up, I have identified the two other males in my school, and I have 1 or 2 other females coloring up mighty bold trying to also get in on the action. Has anyone else experienced any Cardinals (aside from Bangaii, of course) in their display tanks? I've already looked into the details of rearing & raising the fry, and ruled it out - the most success somebody has had was 45 days with any fry, and I'm already far too busy to tend to baby fish feedings. It's certainly a lot different from Clowns, though, since there's no way in hell I could ever get into the tank with a net and pull out the actual pair from the whole school. The slightest movement or motion stirs the Cardinals enough that you can't tell one from the others when they school together - so there will definitely be no disturbing them from the display to try my hand at this further. I just thought I'd ask if anyone else had experienced this, or even seen the breeding happen. I really hope that they continue with this from time to time and that I may be able to get it on camera some time.

XR-E or XP-G?

I've done lots of reading, pic browsing, and deliberating - both before AND after buying my LEDs. My tank's been running on LED's since the start, and I only have ONE coral that came from LEDs in it's previous home. My tank is 27" tall, and my LED's are anywhere from 8-15" from the top of my water (I change it / play with it from time to time). I've got 6 of the PAR38 lamps in 12k over my cube, as well as 3 Stunner Strips as supplemental light. The tank, overall, is too bright for my fish to be overly happy - but in their defense, many of them are deep water specimens. My Angels, Cardinals, and Basslets are all MUCH more active and comfortable when only supplemental lights are turned on. It's also problematic that LED makes it harder to take good snaps and vids of the tank and this is compared to my experience in shooting fish and corals under other forms of lighting, but most obvious when taking full tank shots. Recently I decided to start shopping for some more supplemental light, to put some more blue, UV, and red in - as well as add reflectors to all the Stunner Strips so the light focuses into the tank rather than all over the walls too With the additional supplemental light, I also plan to remove one or two of the PAR38's, hoping to make the fish more comfortable. I need to quit being lazy & finally take some decent video of the tank to post up.

Still seeking some nice examples or matured specimens Also adding to the list: - medium/large Euphillia specimens, no frags - ricordia yumas

Got a pic? And no cell phone pics, one that actually shows what the sponge might look like / how it grows? I've got white sponge now growing in both my sump and refugium, that wasn't around until I was using the biopellets. Mine, however, seemed to suddenly appear and grow very quickly over a short time, and then has since stayed the same. I don't have it popping up in new places, and it doesn't seem like it's growing at a noticeable rate now - but I only have it in my pump chamber and fuge chamber of my sump. Removing it manually and offering it to others isn't a bad idea, especially if you just bring a load of bags to the frag swap. I'm interested to see if what you've got is similar to mine, though. I know a lot of other people have had issues with the bacteria covering their substrate, or the surfaces of their rocks - but luckiy I haven't experienced that.

In my experience, both the tanks I had a single 6500k bulb over wound up growing too much green. Not like totally covered in GHA or anything, but absolutely impossible to keep plant life from growing inside. Plant life more or less ceased to exist after removing the 6500k in both tanks, which were completely separate and using two entirely different fixtures (one using 4 bulbs, the other using 8).

I look forward to an update featuring water It really looks great Chris, I had no idea you were building your own stand - props, dude.

Are you getting the tank by AGE, or DSA? I was originally considering a slightly smaller tank (around 36x30x30) by AGE, but the savings to be had by choosing Marineland was too great for me to pass up in the end. And yes, my question was referring to any sort of liner or tray you may place inside your tank to protect your floor. I've had no issues with all of my equipment sitting on the floor, even with a few salty spills. Then again, I'm just lucky we don't have carpet or wood floors When do you plan on setting yours up, anyway?

this Summer I lost the first Butterfly I added to the tank and this month, the most painful one ever my little Goldflake Angel

They're from the shipment that came into River City Aquatics yesterday. I was originally going to get 3-4 new Angels, 1 BF, and some more Chalk Bass, but then the Mitratus popped up.. & there went a majority of the month's budget Is your 150 also a square base, or an elongate one? I'm so happy I went with the custom metal stand, it was well worth the wait & has paid off in being the ultimate convenience. What are you using on the bottom, inside your stand? I've got everything sitting on our ceramic tile, which is fine, but I am always considering re-doing it with DriDek under everything, since my stand is bottomless.

I got lazy about posting updates, and about keeping up with the forum, so it's been a lonnnnnnng time since I posted anything here, and my total stock (and aquascape) has changed quite a bit. All in all, here is the total up-to-date livestock: - Flagfin Angelfish - Blueface Angelfish (juvenile) - Blueline Angelfish (juvenile) - Majestic Angelfish - Rock Beauty Angelfish (juvenile) - Pyramid Butterfly x2 - Burgess' Butterfly - Mitratus Butterfly (juvenile) - Chalk Basslet - Swales Swissguard Basslet x2 - Threadfin Cardinalfish x8 - Neon Cleaner Goby (ORA) - Fire Shrimp x2 - Peppermint Shrimp - Orange Tuxedo Urchin x2 - Blue Tuxedo Urchin - Hairy Halloween Urchin - Redfooted Conch x4 - Spider Conch - Fighting Conch - Mexican Turbo Snail x2 - Scarlet Hermit-crab x5 Coral wise, I have mushrooms, zoos, a couple Euphillias, some Acros, a Seriatopora, a green toadstool leather & a yellow toadstool leather. Here are some pictures of what I brought home yesterday I'm especially lucky to have found the Mitratus this small, rather than their typical 3-3.5" size. Hell, I didn't even think I'd end up actually having a Mitratus for quite a long time - super psyched for this one.

I strongly suggest Divers Den, then. To be perfectly honest, I don't care how much you may dislike DFS or think you know about them and how they handle their fish - all the rare/finicky/difficult fish of your dreams can be had through them and sold to you only after being QT'd and confirmed to be eating. Not to mention the fact that MOST of their livestock is covered with guaranteed live arrival, and everything in the Divers Den is WYSIWYG. However, when I see posts from anyone, anywhere complaining about purchasing a tang that looks to be in good health, but contracting ich within 24-48hrs in their tank.. all I can do is further preach extreme care of acclimation and QT. All things considered, 95% of the fish in my aquarium are Angels and Butterflies, neither of which "mixes well" with it's own kind (or one another) due to aggression, and all are known to be finicky eaters & quite disease prone. All in all, I've lost TWO fish to jumping (can't blame a dealer or LFS for that), and 3 to starvation (or possibly internal parasite, since they weren't eating the medicated food that would otherwise prevent/treat it). I know that for me, it's my diligence, patience, and over-cautious fishkeeping that pays off in the end and lets me get away with what I've got going in my tank, and in good health. By that I mean that I keep fish that cost hundreds-of-dollars (each) in my refugium section of my sump for weeks or months until I think it's safe and smart to introduce it to my aquarium. I introduce it to the tank by keeping the fish in a "Critter Keeper" by itself in the tank for about a week, and then later releasing it to roam free. I've dealt with ich being on every single fish in my tank, even all of them at once, and I didn't end up losing a single fish to it (this has happened multiple times - now if a fish breaks out with ich, it's typically isolated to just that fish & not spread to the others). I've even endured a heavy bacterial/fungal infection on one of my Angels + the fins of 2 BF's in the display for about 5-6 weeks, but still managed to fight it off without any losses. All I can say is that if the proper precautions are taken to ensure the health and comfort of a fish before introducing it to your aquarium, you should be in complete control over it's general well being. Most people are 100x more 'lax about their new fish additions and medicating and feeding than I am, and most people think I'm insane for the amount of attention and food I give to the fish - but it certainly makes for some success, and very happy healthy fish. I hope your experiences, both locally and mail-order, turn around, and that you have fewer fish lost as your tank matures - but please try to keep an open mind about "who's to blame" for an ill or dead fish.

Which LEDs are you using, by the way? Is your main tank fully lit by LED, or just a frag tank? I'm using the PAR38's and Stunner Strips on mine, and so far so good.

Arg, that is exactly what he has, and many of them! I'm just worried about their size being small enough to become possible "snacks" but I'll never know, until I try. I swung by, but he says they are currently NFS - I gotta wait a month! Hopefully I'm able to find me an ORA example, and at least one of the yellows before that long, and I can pick one of the Tyree's from him in October.

Awesome, thanks Melissa! I think I can swing by there tomorrow since I'll be up North, and have never been in before.

It would seem that I've still yet to have anyone follow up on a yellow or green toadstool leather. I'm still interested, and wanting to feel out some locals before ordering elsewhere and dealing with shipping. ...but Divers Den does have a green one and a yellow one that are tempting Anyone?

Cool, any way you could get me a picture of it? A pic of it closed/agitated won't be very telling, but if it opens up at least halfway and you can snap a pic of it I'd just need to see it before trying to meet up. Just let me know Thanks, but I'm not looking for any cabbage, xenia, or kenya tree corals. Only the Fiji/Tonga yellow leathers, and the ORA/Tyree green toadstools. Cool, thanks for the heads up - I'll check your site. Thanks, I'd love to see a pic of it. Please let me know when you've got some pictures The bigger the better (or at least medium > small), as I'm not the biggest fan of growing out frags